Historically, enterprises have used “Make and Sell” to define their products and services. Prior art FIG. 1a illustrates an example of the make and sell approach. As shown, a technical or marketing organization 10 makes specifications or requirements for an enterprise 12 which, in turn, generates a product or service for being sold to a consumer 14. The technical or marketing organization 10 may produce the specifications or requirements based on information about the customer, shown. Within the enterprise there may be a formal structure for collection of information about customers, but that structure is not common or “scalable” across enterprises.
A new model of collaborative decision making, which is “Market-based”, has proven very effective for delivering more valuable products and services to consumers. FIG. 1b illustrates an example of a market-based approach of the prior art. As shown, an intermediate collaborative decision making process 16 receives the value or needs of the consumer 14. Also, the enterprise 12 provides such intermediate collaborative decision making process 16 with product/service alternatives based on the capabilities of its technical or marketing organizations 10. The intermediate collaborative decision making process 16 in turn contributes in forming an agreement among the decision-makers within the enterprise 12 to produce high-value products and services for the consumer.
While this model has been proven for consumer-to-business frameworks, no work has been done to extend this model to business-to-business (B2B) frameworks in a manner that operates effectively. In a B2B framework, the customer is another business rather than a consumer. There is therefore a need for a computer implemented business method for providing a consumer centric collaborative protocol.